Again, in order to recall an escaping soul (riang sĕmangat) the soul-doctor will
take a fowl’s egg, seven small cockle-shells (kulit k’rang tujoh kĕping), and a
kal^146 of husked rice, and put them all together into a rice-bag (sumpit). He then
rubs the bag all over the skin of the patient’s body, shakes the contents well up
together, and deposits it again close to the patient’s head. Whilst shaking them
up he repeats the following charm:—
“Cluck! cluck! soul of this sick man, So-and-so,
Return into the frame and body of So-and-so,
To your own house and house-ladder, to your own ground and yard,
To your own parents, to your own sheath.”At the end of three days he measures the rice; if the amount has increased, it
signifies that the soul has returned; if it is the same as before, it is still half out of
the body; if less, the soul has escaped and has not yet returned. In this case the
soul is expected to enter the rice and thus cause its displacement.
Another method, not of recalling the soul, but of stopping it in the act of
escaping, is to take a gold ring, not less than a maiam^147 in weight, an iron nail,
a candle-nut (buah k’ras), three small cockle-shells, three closed fistfuls of
husked rice (b’ras tiga gĕnggam bunyi), and some parti-coloured thread. These
articles are all put in a rice-bag, and shaken up together seven times every
morning for three days, by which time the soul is supposed to be firmly reseated
in the patient’s body; then the rice is poured out at the door “to let the fowls eat
it.” The ring is tied to the patient’s wrist by means of a strip of tree-bark (kulit
t’rap), and it is by means of this string that the soul is supposed to return to its
body. When the shaking takes place the following charm must be recited:—
“Peeling-Knife,^148 hooked Knife,
Stuck into the thatch-wall!
Sea-demons! Hamlet-demons!
Avaunt ye, begone from here,
And carry not off the soul of So-and-so,” etc.In conclusion, I will give a quotation from Malay Sketches, which is perhaps as
good an example as could be given of the way in which the Black Art and the
medical performances that in their methods closely resemble it, are regarded by
many respectable Malays:—